Barkway Chalk Pit is a small (0.3 hectare) nature reserve in Barkway in

North Hertfordshire North Hertfordshire is a Non-metropolitan district, local government district in Hertfordshire, England. Its council is based in Letchworth. The district was formed on 1 April 1974 by the amalgamation of the Urban district (Great Britain and Ir ...

. It was managed by the

Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust manages over 40 nature reserves covering nearly north of London, in Hertfordshire and the historic county of Middlesex, part of which is divided between the London boroughs of Barnet, Enfield, Harrow and Hil ...

(HMWT). In February 2016 HMWT announced that three sites, Barkway Chalk Pit,

Hill End Pit Hill End Pit (also called Hill End Farm Pit or Hitch Wood Pit) is a nature reserve on the site of a former chalk pit, in St Paul's Walden in North Hertfordshire. It was formerly managed by the Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust (HMWT). In Februa ...

and

Pryor's Wood Pryor's Wood is an nature reserve in Great Ashby, near Stevenage in Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex ...

, which HMWT managed on behalf of their owner, North Hertfordshire District Council, were to return to Council management as the Trust was no longer able to meet the cost. The site has been designated a Regionally important geological site (RIGS) by the Hertfordshire RIGS Group. It exposes a chalk block which is out of position because it was displaced by the Anglian ice sheet which covered Hertfordshire around 450,000 years ago. The vegetation is chalk scrub, and there are many species of birds, including yellowhammer, spotted flycatcher, blue tit and tawny owl. The entrance to the site is a short distance along an unnamed road which goes north from the junction of The Joint and Royston Road.

References

{{Authority control Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust reserves Chalk pits Geology of Hertfordshire Barkway